Writing an Engaging First Chapter - Caitlin Wahrer

From The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra

In today's Books with Hooks segment, Carly and CeCe discuss being careful with your verb choices so as not to create misunderstandings; the query letter question test; describing the tone of your book as one thing or the other; being careful not to have characters who just have unrelated drama happening to them; changing locations in opening scenes; what constitutes historical fiction; guarding against overwriting and too much mind wandering; getting to the hook faster, and not repeating what’s in the opening pages in the query letter.

After which, Bianca chats with Caitlin Wahrer, debut author of The Damage, about what needs to be in an opening chapter; hooking the reader with immediate questions; writing dual timelines as opposed to flashbacks in the present day; choosing past tense and then struggling with the tenses during flashbacks; structuring stories in a non linear timeline; writing multiple characters in third person close; working with an agent on a revise and resubmit; why writing a query letter for a novel with multiple POV characters is difficult; and the pros of third person close compared to first person.

The query letter can be found on our Ko-fi page: https://ko-fi.com/post/Caitlin-Wahrers-Query-Letter-with-spoilers-remov-T6T65UBFS

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